Looking at NXT Being The New ECW

Introduction: In last week’s column, I made a comment that I thought would get more attention, agreeing with Triple H that the modern version of NXT is more akin to the pre-WWE ECW than a simple developmental promotion. I’d like to expand upon that thought and delve further into just why I agree with it so much.

Before we get started though, I’d like to pose a question to anyone who read last week’s column, about keeping NXT its own entity, separate from the main roster shows. Remember when I said the WWE didn’t need NXT to become a second Smackdown? Was anyone else mortified when the most recent NXT started out just like pretty much any episode of Teddy Long-as-GM-era Smackdown? You had your “four random guys come out to the ring and don’t really say much” interview to start the show, followed by the GM coming out and announcing a tag team match as the main event between those same four guys and a Womens’ match that really would’ve been more at home on RAW or Smackdown (seriously, what’s wrong with Emma – is it just ring rust because she’s barely been used?). Fortunately, we also had a jobber squash, comedy that was actually humorous, and an extremely awesome main event that actually told a story of its own while advancing another storyline (unlike 99% of those Teddy Long-made main events, which basically just treaded water between RAWs). Still though, you can believe that I’m adamantly against mixing the NXT roster with the main roster.

Back to the matter at hand, the first point that I made last week in my ECW/NXT comparison was that both promotions are/were the breeding ground for up-and-coming talent. Like ECW, that includes a fair amount of established wrestlers looking to tweak their character or in-ring work before moving on to a bigger promotion. The list of talent who got their big break in ECW and then went on to bigger and better things is undeniably impressive: Raven, Taz, Rob Van Dam, Rey Misterio Jr, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, Tajiri…and that’s just off the top of my head. And while NXT hasn’t been around long enough to measure the historical impact of their alumni, it looks more and more like the future of the WWE is going to belong to names like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, and even guys like Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn. Even TNA’s Ethan Carter III cut his teeth in NXT.

If you missed ECIII when he was in WWE, the simplest way I can describe him is “Wrestling Andy Samberg”.

Another point that I made last week was that ECW was often the first promotion to highlight international talent or talent who had previously only enjoyed real success outside of the United States. Of the guys mentioned on the previous list, Misterio, Benoit, and Tajiri certainly fit the bill, as well as guys like Super Crazy and even Kai En Tai, who appeared on ECW’s first pay-per-view, Barely Legal, several months before making their WWF debut. The most recent batch of NXT signings includes a pair of wrestlers in Fergal Devitt and Kenta Kobayashi/KENTA/Hideo Itami who pretty clearly illustrate that NXT has much the same idea in mind. You could even add NXT tag team champion Kalisto to that list, who, as Samuray del Sol and Octagon Jr, made a name for himself in Mexico’s AAA promotion.

By highlighting both international stars and top talent culled from the independent wrestling scene, NXT tends to appeal less to the lowest common denominator fans that RAW and Smackdown seek to appease and more to the smart fans who actually knew of/followed these wrestlers prior to them signing WWE contracts. Like ECW before them, NXT has a dedicated and vocal group of fans who are capable of making or breaking a wrestler’s duration in the promotion, to the point where the Full Sail crowd has appropriated some “ECW Original” chants.** For these reasons, NXT has inherited ECW’s reputation of being one of the more entertaining live wrestling experiences of their respective eras. These two factors, in tandem, can greatly improve a debuting talent’s ability to get over with the larger WWE roster, as Bo Dallas’ current clueless heel character so clearly illustrates.

Would we have ever gotten this evolution in the original ECW? I’m not so sure, but I’m glad that we did in NXT.

But perhaps what’s most strikingly similar to me about these two promotions is their difference In 1994, Paul Heyman felt that the NWA was too old fashioned for its own good, so he and Tod Gordon convinced Shane Douglas to throw down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and take Eastern Championship Wrestling to the Extreme. In 2012, Paul Levesque decided to take the WWE’s developmental promotion in a more classical direction, reverting to old school storyline tropes and characters, but done with a modern flair. Yes, ECW’s focus was obviously on the extreme/hardcore aspect of the business, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Triple H was reading Heyman’s blueprints when he laid the foundation for the modern incarnation of NXT. And that is almost strangely appropriate, as the original, game show format NXT was actually the show that replaced the WWE’s version of ECW. Like I pointed out last week, I’d prefer it if we don’t get a WWECW version of NXT, which is what I think will happen if Vince McMahon does actually take an interest in his developmental promotion. But, on the bright side, if history is any indication, even if NXT does turn into a much blander, WWE Style version of itself, there is at least a chance that it will give us the next CM Punk.

And, to be clear, I am not saying that NXT is the second coming of ECW, or even that, ten years down the line, it will be as fondly remembered as ECW still is. As I mentioned, though, I do believe that there are a significant number of similarities between both promotions, and I would be willing to bet that those similarities are no accident. For as bad as Triple H was for business when he was still a full-time active wrestler, he has shown time and again that he is actually a fervent student of the world of professional wrestling. To me, that makes it entirely plausible that he went back and looked at what worked for the WWF, WCW, and ECW during their greatest periods of success, and either consciously or unconsciously molded NXT into a product that reflects a great many of the better qualities of each of those promotions in their heydey. On the bright side, with the WWE’s financial backing, it’s not likely that NXT is going to hit the same dire financial straits that crippled (and eventually killed) the original ECW. But is it better to die out and be remembered fondly, or to fade away?

At least ECW never had to suffer through something like this.

*Maybe not the WWE Hall of Fame, but a general Wrestling Hall of Fame
**Call me crazy, but “Bayley’s gonna hug you” seems an awfully lot like a character-appropriate alteration of “Taz is gonna kill you”.

Wyatt Beougher is a lifelong fan of professional wrestling who has been writing for 411 for over three years and currently hosts MMA Fact or Fiction and reviews Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.